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This is true sometimes but not "nearly any time". For example rate of Spanish fluency in Arizona among second-generation residents is much lower than among thei

• PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Certainly plenty of shaming, though, if you've seen how many Arizonans feel about Hispanics, and heard the rhetoric about immigrants who "refuse to assimilate" (by failing to act, dress, and speak exactly like the locals).
• panglott 10y ago
  The situation can be a bit different with 2nd generation immigrants, especially based on the parents' attitudes towards English. I do see occasional reports in the US of punishing and shaming students for speaking non-English languages, though, and many Americans are very hostile to any accommodation of languages other than English (Spanish signage, "press 1 for English"). And there is a clear, unstated language policy in the US of making immigrant children into English speakers (with no regard to preserving/increasing their mother-tongue proficiency), as well as a general policy of making everyone English-language monolinguals (if we wanted bilingual kids we would have bilingual elementary schools). Minority-language communities really refers to communities where there is a long, stable history of intergenerational language transmission, and where functional bilingualism is possible or likely. Such as any Native American language, or something like Louisiana French. A sane educational policy in this case would be something like "most instruction is conducted in the majority language, but kids aren't punished or shamed for speaking their mother tongue at recess, and there's maybe even an occasional minorty-language literature class".